Left to Right: Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sen. Sam Brownback and Rep. Tom Trancredo.

“Ain’t no monkey had sex with my great-grandmammy”

THIS JUST IN: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch the first Republican presidential candidate debate last night, but it must have been a doozy. The ten hopefuls hit all the important issues–or at least the ones that bring out the costumed crazies: abortion, stem cell research, Terry Schaivo and, of course, the theory of evolution. Writes the New York Times: “Three of the candidates — Mr. Huckabee, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas and Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado — raised their hands to signal that they did not believe in evolution.”

THE BIGGER PICTURE: After these three distinguished themselves from the field by not “believing” in evolution, they attempted to set themselves apart from one another:

“I do not believe that humans evolved from monkeys,” said Rep. Tancredo. “In fact, I do not believe in monkeys. Far as I know, the Bible never mentions monkeys even once.” Gov. Huckabee disagreed. He produced a pocket Bible and quoted Kings 10:22: “The King had a fleet of trading ships at sea along with the ship of Hiram. Once every three years it returned, carrying gold, silver, ivory, and apes and baboons.” Tancredo replied, “I said monkeys.”

While all three men agreed that dinosaurs and humans once coexisted, a purported by creationists, they disagreed on the specifics of the situation. Rep. Tancredo expressed his belief that it was “just like the Flintstones.” Gov. Huckabee also likened human-dinosaur relations to the Flintstones but “the movie, not the TV show.” Sen. Brownback expressed a different belief entirely: “Unlike my opponents, I do not believe humans kept dinosaurs as house pets back then,” Sen. Brownback said. “I believe it was more of a situation like what we have with squirrels these days: I mean, you can pet a squirrel–I did, once–but nobody’s walking around calling them pets.”

Finally, while Huckabee and Brownback agreed that the earth was around 6,000 years old, Tancredo called that notion “preposterous.” “The Earth is 8,000 years old–no more, no less,” Tancredo declared. “Anyone who believes otherwise is going straight to Hell. Eternity is a long, long time, my friends.”